Description My paintings explore connections with the past. The inspiration for the work comes from Scottish/Celtic folklore. I am fascinated with how this resonates / overlaps with other cultures.Traveling has brought further diverse influences. Shetland Skeklers, Celtic folklore, ancient Greek mythology, (the utopian northern people known as Hyperboreans), Byzantine angels and the prehistoric paintings of the San people, (Namibia and South Africa), have served as conduits to the loaded imagery of the canvas.In my most recent paintings, solitary figures appear as repositories or vessels. They are archetypal and shamanistic, sometimes foreboding or benevolent.The Hyperboreans lived beyond the north wind (Boreas) and lived for a thousand years. This Greek, half-myth was embellished by returning sailors who spoke of an idyllic race beyond the rip-tides of the Mediterranean. The Hyperboreans lived beyond Scythia, which is, curiously, mentioned in the Declaration of Arbroath, 1320 as the original homeland of the Scots. (...they journeyed from Greater Scythia by way of the Tyrrhenian Sea...)

Graeme Murray was born in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1963. He studied at Edinburgh College of Art from 1981-86, where he gained a 1st Class Honours BA and Diploma of Post-Graduate Studies (with Distinction). After graduating, he received numerous awards, including the Classon-Harvie Bursary, Mary Rose Bequest and John Kinross-Travelling Scholarship (RSA),Florence, Italy. In 1988, Murray received a Scottish Arts Council Award.

Murray was the youngest artist selected for the prestigious, ‘Britain in Vienna Festival' in 1986, opened by HRH Prince Charles and Lady Diana. The artist has exhibited regularly in both solo and invited, group exhibitions, including, The Edinburgh Printmakers, The Smith Biennial, Stirling, Inverclyde Biennial, Compass Gallery, Glasgow, Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh, Peacock Printmakers, Aberdeen, Alinea Gallery, Nicosia, Cyprus, ‘New Art From Scotland’, Warwick Arts Trust, Pimlico, London, Academy of the Art Institute of San Francisco, USA and The Contemporary Arts Society, Covent Garden, London.In 1991 he travelled to the Shetland Islands as Artist In Residence, for the Scottish Arts Council. During this time he developed themes influenced by celtic folklore and the Scottish literary tradition. These were resonances which would later appear in two large exhibitions in Cyprus. In 1994, the artist moved to a remote studio in the Troodos Mountains of Cyprus, where Byzantine influences further shaped the artist’s oeuvre.

Murray returned to Scotland in 1998, with recent exhibitions in Kelso, Oxfordshire, and the Pittenweem Arts Festival. His paintings form part of collections in the City of Edinburgh, Shetland Arts Trust, RSA and in private collections in Europe, Singapore and the USA.